• Looking to buy a cephalopod? Check out Tomh's Cephs Forum, and this post in particular shares important info about our policies as it relates to responsible ceph-keeping.

New Tank Idea :)

Wow thanks dwhatley! Yes ive seen a video of them getting into the backa and being convinced to come out with a succulent crab :smile: ha! Do you have pics of your set up i could take a look at? If you currently have a similar setup? I would want to run the normal lighting because i will probably still have corals, polyps, and mushrooms etc... It seems to me that you have had some experience with this species in particular correct me if im wrong, so anything and everything would be appreciated. Do they accept frozen food if they are capable of slowly being weined off live foods?
 
I try to keep a merc in the 15 most of the time but the tank is currently unoccupied.

Send me a PM or email with your email address (click on my name at the left for the option) and I will forward a not ready for prime time word doc I have that might be helpful (a bit wordy I am told :wink:). If you don't have the ability to read an MS Word .doc file, let me know and I can dig up the link to Microsoft's free reader.

Alternately, if you have a couple of rainy days, you can start with Trapper's journal and follow the forward links :sagrin:
 
I think the PM sent through.. let me know if it didnt i titled it **cephdoc new**. It didnt show up in my sent messages? So idk what went wrong if anything at all did. If it didnt then like i said just send me one in a PM or post back on here. Can i ask why its currently unoccupied?
 
Sleazy died (old age) and Monty used it as a baby tank. I now have three juvenile octopuses in the house and Neal (spouse) says three mouths are enough :biggrin2:. Should a little merc show up at my doorstep I could not leave it out in the cold though (ie if Kara happens upon another this season).

The PM worked fine and you should see an email from me. You may have to set an option in you profile to have sent messages saved in your sent mail folder as I am not sure what the defaults are.
 
Dwhatley! Hey! I work every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 6pm- 6am. So i slept all day today and got up before i came to work to look at my email, and i did get your merc article. I will read it and send feedback at the beginning of the week sound good? Thanks for your help, i look forward to continue to talk to you about it. Could you also point me in the right direction to someone who is experienced with Sepia Bandensis (Dwarf Cuttles)?
 
LOL, you are already getting some of the best advice we have to offer along with some reading material to expose you to real world experience. You can "validate" some of the advice by looking at the number of posts :sagrin: and by looking in the List of Our (cuttlefishes or octopuses) at the top of the Journals and Photos forum for journaled experiences. If you get conflicting information finding the member with the most keeping experience or most closely related to what you are trying to understand are my choice of ways to decide on a path. However, there is always more than one way to do something so if a particular idea is most to your liking, invistigate its success.
 
I understand, im very thankful for everything thus far, i just want to be sure i know everything i can before i start. Because i feel this pressure that there is little room for error?
 
I have no luck at all with mysid and am fortunate that I have only had to keep them a couple of times. No matter what I have tried they either die off or eat each other.

Many of us get our fiddler crabs from Paul Sachs. The Sources for Cephalopods and Food forum is a good place to look for additional information. Paul and his son catch them pretty much weekly so they are very fresh and survive well without much attention other than small feedings (flake food or Cyclop-eeze) and can be kept in something as simple as a salt bucket with nontoxic platforms. However we do have some members who have built out a variety of interesting habitats. They will survive using fresh, brackish or saltwater (I have not found much of a difference in my experiements and am going to try using tank water from a water change next) but I would avoid using straight tap water.

If you can FIND live bait shrimp they will survive nicely in a 10 gallon with cascade filter and top (they tend to jump out if the top is not covered but the covering can be ill fitting and/or grided to allow heat escape) for several months, possibly for a normal life time. We are on a continuous hunt for a source for these but so far only get them when returning from a FL trip. If you transport them yourself, use as much water as you can manage and a battery operated air pump. Freeze any that don't make the trip home, the rest should live until fed.

Smaller, shore shrimp (also available fresh from Paul Sachs) make good small food but are difficult for an octopus to catch and we usually feed them dead but keep them live until they are fed.

Freshly dead (no smell) of any of these can be frozen and fed thawed in saltwater and brought to room or tank temperature. They do age in the freezer and become dehydrated so shelf life is somewhat limited. Alternating foods seems to be important for feeding octopuses (they tend to start ignoring food if given the same thing every day) but I don't know if this is true for cuttles.
 
This was very helpful once again. Ive looked at Paul Sachs and am pretty pleased with it. I asked about the mysids because Cuttle young must eat those after they hatch for the 1st month and a half.. if im understanding everything ive been told correctly.
 
There are not many choices for new hatched cuttles other than mysid but read through the cuttle journals for some potential additional (not replacement) foods. Mysid are just very expensive and hard to maintain. There is likely a trick to maintaining them more successfully but I failed to learn it the couple of times I have used them as feeders. There is usually a celebratory note when they start eating larger foods.
 
I was referring to the mysid but because they ARE expensive they make new hatchlings expensive. New hatch cuttles seem to be hit and miss, and the journals will help get a feel for what to expect. It does seem that eggs laid in the middle of the cycle have a better chance of surviving than those laid at the beginning or end (bandensis, unlike their larger cousins lay multiple egg clutches over much of their lives).
 

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